ACT taxpayers are to be left with another hefty bill over an administrative bungle by the territory's parole board as Attorney-General Simon Corbell moves to replace half the members of the embattled panel.
Lawyers for a Canberra man threatened with unlawful imprisonment by the Sentence Administration Board agreed to a settlement with the ACT Government Solicitor's office on Friday that is expected to leave the territory with a bill of up to $50,000.
It is the latest in a series of board decisions to be challenged successfully in court resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs and compensation for criminals wrongly detained by the board's findings.
The board is now down to just three members after the appointments of the other three including chairman Philip Lee expired last month without them being replaced or offered new appointments.
Mr Corbell has told The Canberra Times that his department is considering other ''expressions of interest'' for the vacant board positions.
In Friday's matter, the ACT Government Solicitor's office hired high-profile Sydney silk Mellissa Perry, QC, supported by Canberra barrister Ken Archer to defend the claim by Terrance Edge, a NSW offender who moved to Canberra last year, that the parole board's attempt to jail him was unlawful.
But on Friday the Government Solicitor conceded that the board had tried to force the 34-year-old to serve a seven-month jail sentence imposed for breaching a weekend jail order in the ACT that he had already served in NSW.
For more on this story, see the print edition of today's Canberra Times.
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